Top 128 Quotes & Sayings by Alexander McQueen

Explore popular quotes and sayings by an English designer Alexander McQueen.
Last updated on December 7, 2024.
Alexander McQueen

Lee Alexander McQueen CBE was a British fashion designer and couturier. He founded his own Alexander McQueen label in 1992, and was chief designer at Givenchy from 1996 to 2001. His achievements in fashion earned him four British Designer of the Year awards, as well as the CFDA's International Designer of the Year award in 2003.

You can get insular with fashion.
I came to terms with not fitting in a long time ago. I never really fitted in. I don't want to fit in. And now people are buying into that.
When I'm dead and gone, people will know that the twenty-first century was started by Alexander McQueen. — © Alexander McQueen
When I'm dead and gone, people will know that the twenty-first century was started by Alexander McQueen.
You can only go forward by making mistakes.
Clothes and jewellery should be startling, individual. When you see a woman in my clothes, you want to know more about them. To me, that is what distinguishes good designers from bad designers.
Of course I make mistakes. I'm human. If I didn't make mistakes, I'd never learn. You can only go forward by making mistakes.
I just want to be a wallflower. Nondescript. Just not anything. I don't want to see me.
Sting's my ideal man, because he's a real man.
Youth culture now really looks back and embraces the past, but keeps it contemporary but not sticking to one particular style.
When a woman gets dressed up to go out at night, she wants to give 50% away, and hold the rest back. If you're an open book, there's no allure.
I think the idea of mixing luxury and mass-market fashion is very modern, very now - no one wears head-to-toe designer anymore.
It's good to know where you come from. It makes you what you are today. It's DNA, it's in your blood.
It's not my vision when I cover a woman's face with a chador. I got the idea from a 'National Geographic' photo. I'm just showing their plight in the world. — © Alexander McQueen
It's not my vision when I cover a woman's face with a chador. I got the idea from a 'National Geographic' photo. I'm just showing their plight in the world.
I think I should be a president. President of the United States.
I don't want to be too proud, but I have a good personal style.
Rap music's been around for too long now to be inspirational. The words are, but the music isn't.
For people who know McQueen, there is always an underlying message. It's usually only the intellectual ones who understand what's going on in what I do.
I never look at other people's work. My mind has to be completely focused on my own illusions.
My relationships with producers or photographers - these are relationships that took years.
I've had good times; I've had bad times.
I'm mad in the front of my mind, but business-minded in the back.
I want to empower women.
Menswear is about subtlety. It's about good style and good taste.
Give me time and I'll give you a revolution.
I'm not interested in being liked.
I want to empower women. I want people to be afraid of the women I dress.
I was three years old when I started drawing. I did it all my life.
I have been skiing since I was in school, but I'm not great. I am never going to break an Olympic record, I just want to go down the hills, on red or blue runs, but not... black.
Really, what I'm aiming for is world domination!
I find it grotesque when clothes hit you in the face and there's no room for fault. But I don't expect to turn things around all by myself. I'm not a saint.
You can hide so much behind theatrics, and I don't need to do that any more.
I like the idea of infiltrating an area that is not really exposed to me or my work.
For a long time I was looking for my perfect equilibrium, my mojo. And now I think I'm getting there: I've found my customer, my silhouette, my cut.
I work with people I admire and respect. It's never because of who they are.
As a designer, you've always got to push yourself forward; you've always got to keep up with the trends or make your own trends. That's what I do.
The police need to come down to street level.
I come from a different era and I design clothes for our era. I think of people I want to dress when I design.
British fashion is self confident and fearless. It refuses to bow to commerce, thus generating a constant flow of new ideas whilst drawing in British heritage. — © Alexander McQueen
British fashion is self confident and fearless. It refuses to bow to commerce, thus generating a constant flow of new ideas whilst drawing in British heritage.
Some couture collections have everything including the kitchen sink! Everything gets thrown on to make it look expensive. I find it grotesque when clothes hit you in the face and there's no room for fault. But I don't expect to turn things around all by myself. I'm not a saint.
The turnover of fashion is just so quick and so throwaway, and I think that is a big part of the problem. There is no longevity.
Nicey nicey just doesn't do it for me.
There has to be a balance between your mental satisfaction and the financial needs of your company.
I feel more Scottish than Norman.
It's a new era in fashion - there are no rules. It's all about the individual and personal style, wearing high-end, low-end, classic labels, and up-and-coming designers all together.
I find beauty in the grotesque, like most artists.
I want people to be afraid of the women I dress.
I'm not big on women looking naive.
Now I design what I want to wear, and it works that way. — © Alexander McQueen
Now I design what I want to wear, and it works that way.
You find a lot of ideas from my shows in adverts now. I find it a compliment.
There is something sinister, something quite biographical about what I do - but that part is for me. It's my personal business. I think there is a lot of romance, melancholy. There's a sadness to it, but there's romance in sadness. I suppose I am a very melancholy person.
Fame should be left to the film stars.
I always wanted to be a designer. I read books on fashion from the age of 12.
I like the concept of dressing people. I used to not care whether people bought the clothes or not, but I kind of like it now. I wouldn't label that commercialism; it's more like I do this work because I want people to wear it.
There is a hidden agenda in the fragility of romance.
I was never a big networker, but I was a spin doctor, all those shock shows, that's how I got my first backers. But fashion's a scary industry to be in, especially if you've not grown up with it.
Fashion should be a form of escapism, and not a form of imprisonment.
I'm interested in designing for posterity.
I can design a collection in a day and I always do, cause I've always got a load of Italians on my back, moaning that it's late.
It's usually only the intellectual ones who understand what's going on in what I do.
I am married to work.
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